It is better to be safe than to do anything that may place us in dangerous
position. Here ‘sure’ is used in a old sense of ‘safe’, ‘free from danger’.
‘If we reach the forest’, says in a character of Shakespeare, ‘we shall be
sure enough’.

> Two boys were chased across a field by a bull. They just managed the escape
its horn by climbing up a tree. After half an hour or so one said:

> ‘We can’t stop here all the day. Let’s make a run for it.’

> ‘You do as you like,’ said the other. ‘I’m stopping where I am till a farmer
comes. Better be sure than sorry.’

##### See also:

* Better safe than sorry